VHB 2026 Errata
- Thread starter Geir
- Start date
Libris
Cosmic Mongoose
The spreadsheet seems to agrees with planetfall. It works out the shipping size of a 1 space Open Frame grav vehicle as 0.25 dTons.
The relationship between Spaces and dTons seems to have a more nebulous approach than the description on p25 implies. The 2 spaces are 1 space and 4 spaces equals a dTon is confusing at best - aircraft and collapsed dirigibles don’t follow it. While you can’t have fractional spaces you can clearly have fractional dTons.
Another example would be, say, a 10 space aircraft which would normally require 10 dTons to ship it. If you give it Folding Wings it now only requires 7.5 dTons to ship it - it hasn’t lost any usable space you can just fold up the wings and store it in a smaller volume.
planetfall
Mongoose
Yeah. And this is not a situation that involves fractional spaces at all. This only involves changes to a vehicle type stat. Deflated blimps only take up 0.2 dTons of volume per space. A one space openframed grav vehicle taking up 0.25 dTons is not some game-breaking thing that should be avoided
Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
I use the spreadsheet, so it isn't any problem for me whatsoever.
The fractions HAVE to come after the final design. During design, you cannot deal in fractional spaces. Open frame occurs as part of the design process. Once the design is done, THEN you can calculate the shipping space, based on the full rated whole-number space(s) as modified by your design choices.
The main point: Shipping Volume exists OUTSIDE of the design process. Keep that in mind and the cognitive dissonance disappears.
You have exactly two cases to work with on open frame vehicles. One effective space after reduction and two effective spaces after reduction.
The fractions HAVE to come after the final design. During design, you cannot deal in fractional spaces. Open frame occurs as part of the design process. Once the design is done, THEN you can calculate the shipping space, based on the full rated whole-number space(s) as modified by your design choices.
The main point: Shipping Volume exists OUTSIDE of the design process. Keep that in mind and the cognitive dissonance disappears.
But isn’t this why Geir is rewriting this. I feel like these things are not under his control because from everything else he’s written I don’t see him messing up size of so many weapon systems.
I'll be honest I don’t have a problem with the space system for vehicle design I think it hits a nice middle ground between tech crunchy and accessibility to the broader Traveller gaming community. The ideal that for every space you can play around with there’s a corresponding space or spaces that are part of the vehicle infrastructure makes sense. How much of a cars volume is taken up by the body and drive train. Hint it’s about 40 to 60% on most cars.
Now I know that some people want a new version of FF&S but truthfully that level of crunch scares most people, I bet no more than a handful of players of TNE actually used FF&S because of the level of complexity. If you were one of them great most people were not.
Now I know that some people want a new version of FF&S but truthfully that level of crunch scares most people, I bet no more than a handful of players of TNE actually used FF&S because of the level of complexity. If you were one of them great most people were not.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
I have nothing against the spaces system, I would just like it to be clear and consistent.
A vehicle size should be total spaces, with available construction spaces as indicated:
8 space/4 construction
the scaling should be consistent
4 spaces is equal to a displacement ton - is that 4 total (a 4/2 vehicle) or 8 (an 8/4 vehicle)
But that ship has sailed, which was known from the earliest days of this project.
A blue box that clearly and explicitly states the above would be nice.
A vehicle size should be total spaces, with available construction spaces as indicated:
8 space/4 construction
the scaling should be consistent
4 spaces is equal to a displacement ton - is that 4 total (a 4/2 vehicle) or 8 (an 8/4 vehicle)
But that ship has sailed, which was known from the earliest days of this project.
A blue box that clearly and explicitly states the above would be nice.
And it’s been clearly stated that 4 spaces equals 1dt that’s 4 total space chassis and construction combined. Its was even strongly implied in the first version of the VH. If 4 spaces equals 1dt and 1 construction space equals .5dt then you have one construction space and one chassis space. It’s simple math.
As far as scaling goes some vehicles require a larger percentage in chassis it’s not hard to understand that a jet fighter chassis/drive system would take 75% of the total spaces so 1space of construction space equals 1dt because the chassis takes the other 3. 1+3=4. Heavy jets are even worse 1space equal 2dt so the chassis takes 7 chassis spaces to 1 construction.
It seem simple enough to me.
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mavikfelna
Emperor Mongoose
No, a vehicle space in 0.25 dTons, and actually includes 2 spaces, the useable space and the machinery space. A 4 space vehicle is 4 usable spaces and 4 machinery spaces.
Unfortunately, this is not clearly articulated in the book and you need to reverse engineer designs in the book or examine the spreadsheet closely to figure it out.
No. A vehicle space is .25dt but you need an additional space for machinery. So a for 1 usable space you have 1 mechanical space for 2 space or .5 dt. It’s literally listed that 4 spaces equal 1dt look at the weapon table a heavy auto cannon is 4 space or 1dt. A vehicle space is .25 dt but for every usable space you have a machinery space which is why on a car each space is .5 dt because it’s actually two spaces 1 usable and 1 mechanical. I’ve reverse engineered plenty of the designs and you wrong. A Trepida grav tank for example has 20 usable spaces but is 10dt because 20 usable spaces + 20 mechanical spaces equals 40 spaces, 40/4 equals 10dt.
Were your getting 8 spaces a dt I don’t know because by your math a Trepida would only be 5 dt.
mavikfelna
Emperor Mongoose
Sorry, it's 0.25 dTons per space, not per 2 spaces. Page 25 says 4 spaces per ton. But I was reading that as usable spaces. The picture on page 24 cleared it up for me. But it's much too confusing as it's currently written because they keep switching between usable space and total space without a definite description that says total spaces take up that amount, not just usable spaces.
You have to keep in mind that it’s 4 spaces per dt but some chassis requires more machinery spaces per usable spaces and some less. You have to use the shipping tonnage per space to see this. For example a grav vehicle shipping tonnage is .5 per usable space that’s because you have 1 usable space and 1 chassis space but a jet runs 1 dt per usable space that because for every usable space you have 3 chassis spaces. I actually see this as the genius of the system it removes 90% of the crunch that caused problems with but FF&S and MegaTraveller by acknowledging that in the end your going to get the same numbers but with the chassis system your not crunching a ton of number just to get the same effect.
My problem with the original VH was never the chassis system it was with all the other stuff that ignored every other building book in the system and some of the actual use of the chassis system (vehicles in many cases were 2 to 3 times the size they should have been with weaker performance). To me the new version fixes most of those problems though for some reasons there still some serious problems with weaponry.
Quick fix for the artillery. The Bombards and siege gun can be quickly fixed by dropping a zero from the size and dt, the meson guns need to be a third of the listed size and dt.
Light Bombard 10dt/40spaces
Medium Bombard 22dt/88spaces
Heavy Bombard 50dt/200spaces
Siege Gun 120dt/480spaces
Light Meson Gun 5dt/20spaces TL 15 damage 5DD Blast 20 50-300 damage
Medium Meson Gun 10dt/40spaces TL 15 damage 6DD Blast 40 60-360 damage
Heavy Meson Gun 20dt/80spaces TL 15 damage 8DD Blast 50 80-480 damage
Small Meson Bay 30dt/120spaces TL 15 damage 5DDx10 Blast 10 500-3000 damage
The blast area also I think is a little large I’m guessing it’s to offset the massive size but I think useable would make more sense plus the general move for artillery has been less collateral damage not more. The blast should be 10/15/30 respectively that makes more sense especially with a weapon that ignores most defenses. As it is now with the size currently you might as well remove them from the game not only are the so large as being really only practical for ships and building but with the small meson gun bay being the same size as the medium meson gun and doing more damage and having ten times the range of the heavy meson gun it just doesn’t make sense to have them. The numbers don’t lie the meson guns are way too large and have an unusable blast area they simple don’t make sense.
Light Bombard 10dt/40spaces
Medium Bombard 22dt/88spaces
Heavy Bombard 50dt/200spaces
Siege Gun 120dt/480spaces
Light Meson Gun 5dt/20spaces TL 15 damage 5DD Blast 20 50-300 damage
Medium Meson Gun 10dt/40spaces TL 15 damage 6DD Blast 40 60-360 damage
Heavy Meson Gun 20dt/80spaces TL 15 damage 8DD Blast 50 80-480 damage
Small Meson Bay 30dt/120spaces TL 15 damage 5DDx10 Blast 10 500-3000 damage
The blast area also I think is a little large I’m guessing it’s to offset the massive size but I think useable would make more sense plus the general move for artillery has been less collateral damage not more. The blast should be 10/15/30 respectively that makes more sense especially with a weapon that ignores most defenses. As it is now with the size currently you might as well remove them from the game not only are the so large as being really only practical for ships and building but with the small meson gun bay being the same size as the medium meson gun and doing more damage and having ten times the range of the heavy meson gun it just doesn’t make sense to have them. The numbers don’t lie the meson guns are way too large and have an unusable blast area they simple don’t make sense.
